Klamath County was a county of
California from 1851 to 1874. During its existence, the
county seat moved twice and ultimately portions of the territory it once had were carved up and added to nearby counties. It was formed from the northwestern portion of
Trinity County, and originally included all of the northwestern part of the state, from the
Mad River in the south to
Oregon in the north, from the
Pacific Ocean in the west to the middle of what is now
Siskiyou County in the east. It is the only county in California to be disestablished.[1]
History
The original county seat was
Trinidad, on the county's southwestern coast. In 1854 the county seat was moved to
Crescent City, because of its larger population. But the western portion of the county was unrepresentative of the
mining interests in the eastern portion of the county, and so, in 1856, the county seat was moved inland, to
Orleans Bar, now Orleans.[1] In 1857,
Del Norte County, including
Crescent City, was split off from Klamath County.
The county's economy was never healthy after the gold rush. The area was contested with indigenous tribes. The "Klamath and Salmon River Indian "War""and the 1858-1864 "Bald Hills War" involved European-American vigilantes hunting down and killing most indigenous adult males and killing, capturing, or enslaving women and children. Many of the captive indigenous subsequently died of starvation and exposure at Fort Humboldt.[2] The European-American settler's economy suffered from the effects of the Indian "wars", which disrupted the supplies to the settlements from the coastal towns. Worse still was the devastating effects of the
Great Flood of 1862 which swept away the riverside settlements, mining works and ferries.
In 1874 Klamath County was finally abolished, divided between
Siskiyou and
Humboldt counties. Present day
Del Norte County occupies part of Klamath County.
^
abTurner, Dennis W. and Gloria H. (2010). Place Names of Humboldt County, California: A Compendium 1542-2009. Orangevale, Ca: Dennis W. & Gloria H. Turner. p. 144.
ISBN978-0-9629617-2-4.
^<Madley, Benjamin, "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe", Yale University Press, 2016, pages 234-237>